Given Wings
by lastpaperbender
Summary: Actually, based on the Archangel Trilogy by Sharon Shinn, which is semi Bible-based. Petition for Sharon Shinn category in progress; the early origins of Samaria. Please R & R! :-)
1. Prologue

Abigail gave a little cry of pain and joy. Old Levi the oracle bent his gray head with relief. Jonathan smiled quietly as he accepted his infant daughter from the attending doctor, and ran a gentle finger over the child's small, folded cherub-wings, slick with birth fluids.  
  
"Thank Jovah," murmured Levi. "At last, at last..."  
  
Jonathan returned the baby girl to his wife's anxious, searching hands, and Abigail smiled wearily up at him; the angel was surprised to see tears running down her flushed face. "I thought it couldn't happen, that it wouldn't work..." she whispered. "I thought this one would turn out like Deborah..."  
  
"What?" A small, dark girl who bore Jonathan's hard features looked up with a scowl. "What about me?" she repeated.  
  
Her distracted mother did not hear, but continued to fuss of the winged infant. Jonathan took his first daughter's hand in his own, and sighed. "Nothing, dearheart," he told her. Deborah said nothing, but instead buried herself beneath her father's dove-gray wing. Jonathan felt his arm go around her protectively; with his second daughter's birth, he had come to realize that Deborah's life would be less than it had been; she would live always in the shadow of her angelic sister, and of any other angelic offspring that Jonathan and Abigail produced. He felt the girl's small hand against his feathers, and felt a pang of regret—he had not thought, when he had accepted his wings, of the shadows they might cast in this newly born world. Angelic children were so rare and so desperately craved—it was only natural that prejudices should form against the poor children who'd had the misfortune to be born mortal. Jonathan drew Deborah into a close embrace, and she nuzzled against his side. Human or no, she was his first and best-beloved child; and whatever dark times were ahead, he would always be her father. 


	2. Chapter 1

"There he is! Look!" Miriam whispered to Deborah, nudging her sister in the shoulder; the dark girl smiled. The opening mass had been spectacular, as always, but Deborah's favorite part of the Gloria was hearing her father's deep, velvet-rich voice raised in song. She strained her eyes for a moment in the late morning sun to watch as the angel Jonathan ascended to the dais; he was not an imposing figure, with his small stature and insubstantial appearance, but his silver-gilt hair identified him to everyone present more than the bracelets at his wrists ever could have.  
  
"The earth is Jovah's and everything in it..." He began so softly that everyone dropped their voices to silence in order to hear.  
  
"...the world, and all who live in it;  
for he founded it upon the seas  
and established it upon the waters.  
Who may ascend the hill of Jovah?  
Who may stand in his holy place?  
He who has clean hands and a pure heart...  
He will receive blessing from Jovah.  
Such is the generation of those who seek him.  
  
Lift up your heads, O you gates,  
be lifted up, you ancient doors,  
that the glory of Jovah may come in..."  
  
Deborah sighed, closed her eyes, and was content. There was something about that mellow, dark voice that always managed to soothe the worst of her worries and grant her a few moments of peace and divine blessing. Perhaps she felt this way because Jonathan's voice was one which was said to please Jovah the most; perhaps she simply remembered it as the voice which has always nurtured her, praised her, chided her, comforted her, the voice which had spoken kind words to her when the most anyone else could give was pitying silence. Deborah knew that she was uncommonly lucky to have the angel Jonathan as her father—in the angel holds, few of the winged men and women lavished such attention upon their mortal children; in fact, there was an alarming trend among the young male angels to simply abandon mother both if the infant came out wingless. But Jonathan had loved her indiscriminately, sharing his love with her and her two angelic siblings, Miriam and Jude. Deborah liked to think that, as Jonathan's single human child, she had a special bond with her father; she had noticed at a young age, while resting her head upon his knee, that he had a habit of watching his two angelic children with an odd, sad gaze, then sighing and reaching down to stroke her rich, dark hair.  
  
"Why do you look so sad, father?" she would ask, and he would answer, "It's nothing, dearheart." He had always reserved the name 'dearheart' for her, and she had been content with that.  
  
Deborah opened her eyes when her father's song concluded as softly as it had begun, then smiled and applauded with everyone else. She felt another nudge at her side, and looked to Miriam; the younger girl pushed back her curtain of lush chestnut hair, and said, "I'm going to find Jude—we're doing a duet after the next two singers." Deborah nodded, and waved her younger sister away, then paused a minute before wading into the crowd to find her father.  
  
*****  
  
An unwelcome hand placed upon one furled wing alerted Jonathan to Levi's presence; he twitched the pinion away as he turned to greet the oracle. "Splendid performance, as always," the old, white-haired man said, his smile baring crooked teeth. "You're one of the lucky ones Jonathan; many of the other first angels have worn their voices down already, but yours remains as clear and strong as ever... you have a great deal to be proud of."  
  
"Thank you," the silver-haired angel said, offering a chair to the stooped oracle. Levi lowered himself stiffly, then rearranged the folds of his robe. "I fear we're neither of us as young as we once were," he chuckled.  
  
"No," Jonathan answered. "We're not."  
  
The oracle nodded, chaffing his hands to warm them. "How are your children then?" he inquired of the angel. "I seem to recall that your daughter's birthday is sometime this month, no?"  
  
"Deborah?" Jonathan frowned.  
  
"No, no...Miriam. She'll be 20, won't she?"  
  
The angel nodded, understanding. "Yes."  
  
Levi nodded again, pleased. "I see...and has she got her eye on some young man yet? She's well old enough."  
  
"I'm not sure. Her affections seem to change from week to week."  
  
"Hmm." The oracle wheezed his amusement. "But speaking of Deborah...I'm surprised that she isn't married yet, especially with as many unwed young angels as there are around Monteverde..."  
  
Jonathan shrugged, feeling slightly more uncomfortable than before. "Deborah's choosy," he said, "and has every right to be. There are any number of Monteverde folk I would object to as sons-in-law, both human and angelic."  
  
Levi made a little sound. "Oh, she's got to marry an angel, there's no question about that."  
  
"What?" The silver-haired angel's frown deepened, and he felt his wings lifting in alarm.  
  
"Well she's your daughter," the oracle said. "She's got angelic blood in her, even if she doesn't have the wings. If she marries an angel there's a good chance that she'll bear angel children."  
  
The angel's agate-gray eyes narrows, and his hard face came close to Levi's. "Are you suggesting that I should breed my daughter?"  
  
"Jonathan, Jonathan! Nothing so cold as that for your daughter...but I am sure that it will be the god's wish. It has been so with the sons and daughters of all your peers. And there are so few angels in the world as it is..."  
  
"Enough," Jonathan answered coldly, turning away. "If I had known what fate lay in store for my children, all those years ago, I would have refused my wings."  
  
The oracle goggled. "Refused your wings? You would have refused Jovah's command? You would have refused the sanctity and glory of your station? Are you mad?"  
  
The angel touched a finger to one slate-colored feather, and felt a coldness turn his stomach. "I do not know what Jovah's will is," he said slowly. "I never have. I accepted these wings on the belief that it would make the world better...but I cannot believe that the god intends for us to be bred like animals...to twist and bend our lives only so that there will be more angels in Samaria."  
  
Levi frowned a little. "Why Jonathan, I never knew you for a doubting soul! You, one of the angels, one of the elect." He shook his head. "Come with me back to Mount Sudan...there I will speak with the god through the interface, and dispel your fears."  
  
Jonathan was silent for a moment; then he nodded once, grimly. 


	3. Chapter 2

The angel Lucifer watched the object of his interest from a distance. "That one," he said, nodding at the dark-haired young woman who was shouldering her way through the Gloria crowd towards the dais. His friend, Absalom, narrowed his eyes to see, wings stretching out behind him as he leaned forward. "My angelica-to-be," Lucifer said with a smirk.  
  
"Deborah? That's who Levi chose for you?"  
  
"Jovah chose her for me."  
  
Absalom straightened up, face troubled. "It's an odd match, but you could do worse, I suppose."  
  
His friend sniffed. "Odd match indeed--it's an ideal match!" He rested a hand upon his friend's shoulder. "The folk of Samaria have lived under Uriel for half their lifetimes. They're all uneasy about the change from him to me--what better way to reassure them than to marry Jonathan's daughter? True, Miriam would have been a better match--but you've seen what is produced by two angels together."  
  
Absalom shivered, thinking of poor Reu, the monstrous child who had been born to the angels Adah and Eliab in their earliest years. He was a well-kept secret in Samaria overall, but in the angel holds he remained a powerful incentive for many angels to restrain their passions for one another. "Does she know?" he asked Lucifer.  
  
The other angel shook his head, his ruddy-gold mane of hair catching the rays of the afternoon sun. "Not yet." His shrewd eyes grew speculative. "She's not pretty, is she?" Absalom made an indecisive gesture. "She has her father's looks," Lucifer continued. "Little and dark and hard...If she has Jonathan's ways as well, then she will be an angelica to reckon with."  
  
Absalom hunched his shoulders and wings uncomfortably, and looked out over the swarm of people. "So what do you plan to do when you're Archangel? I imagine many people are uncomfortable because they don't know where you stand on a lot of things."  
  
"Hmm." Lucifer folders his arms across his broad chest. "For one thing, I mean to bring those oracles and priests down a peg or two--I daresay they've been playing with us like toys for too long."  
  
Absalom's thick eyebrows flew up in alarm, then furrowed deeply. "What are you saying?" he asked softly.  
  
"I'm saying they've been playing games with us for too long. They sit up in their mountains and pray before those panels, and tell us that only they can interpret the God's word. Think of it, Absalom: why is it we have never seen Jovah? Why is it that only the oracles can speak for him?" The red-haired angel sneered. "I'll tell you why: the oracles use him to justify their power and influence. They invoke him to frighten the ignorant farmers and city-dwellers into obedience."  
  
"I'm not sure that's all true," Absalom said. "And besides, you have to admit that the angels too use Jovah as their right to rule--"  
  
"--but it's not the same thing!" Lucifer cut in, gesturing his impatience with his hands. "We use our prayers to Jovah to benefit the people of Samaria; the oracles have no real power such as ours. They're false pretenders!" The angel's voice dropped to a low whisper. "Do you know how I found out that Deborah was to be my angelica?" he asked, an unpleasant smile on his lips.  
  
Absalom shook his head.  
  
"I asked the God myself."  
  
The brown-haired angel was incredulous. "You--you used the interface?"  
  
Lucifer nodded his head once, decisively. "I took up Levi's phrasebook while he slept, and puzzled it out for myself. I asked, 'Jovah, are you there?' After a moment, he spelled out 'Yes' on the panel, in letters I could read. I asked him who the next angelica would be, and he named Deborah." The fire went out of Lucifer's eyes, and his lips twisted ironically. "Now you see why I can't tell her."  
  
His brown-haired friend sighed, bewildered. "No, I suppose you can't. But Lucifer--if anyone ever gets word of this, they'll call you a blasphemer, and worse!" He raised his eyebrows as the Archangel-elect shrugged nonchalantly. "All I can say, Lucifer, is that you're not likely to have a peaceful reign."  
  
Lucifer chuckled. "No, I suppose not. But it would hardly be interesting if I did." 


	4. Chapter 3

Lying on the ill-fitting bed at Mount Sudan, the angel Jonathan turned over and over again fitfully. It wasn't just that the bed had been designed with wingless bodies in mind; the trials and worries of the day were heavy on his mind. He and Levi had put any number of questions to Jovah, and as always, the god's answers had been cryptic at best. What am I doing? What direction is this world going? Jonathan asked himself, turning onto his stomach to alleviate some of his discomfort. He remembered being in this position only once before, when he had been very young, and half-drugged. It had been at Mount Sinai, in Bethel; he remembered surgeons and doctors and priests and oracles hovering around him, frowning and speaking unintelligible words; he had been the last angel they made that day, and they had been too tired to drug him properly. He remembered seeing a small, wicked knife being taken up by an anonymous hand, feeling something cold make a line down his numbed back, seeing the knife replaced on the tray. The first thing he remembered clearly was looking over his shoulder and seeing grotesque appendages jutting from his back, bald except for tiny pinfeathers, like the wings of a plucked fowl. He had been all of twenty years old.  
  
Yet he had agreed to it. Admittedly, the priests and oracles had given him little choice, but he had given them his word on it. "You," they had said. "If not you, then who shall it be? There must be angels in the world! Someone must guide these wretched folk, and uphold Jovah's law. No, Jonathan, it must be you." Had it been a mistake? He thrust aside the blanket, and surged to his feet, tormented.  
  
"Bad dreams, Jonathan?" In the doorway stood Hagar, the wife and angelica of the Archangel Uriel.  
  
"Yes...yes, something of the sort," the silver-haired angel said, too surprised for formalities. "I didn't know you were here, angela."  
  
"I came to ask Levi a few questions--or Jovah, rather--before Lucifer takes power tomorrow" she said, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm sorry to intrude, but you've been thrashing in here all night. And now that I'm here, I can hardly leave you so ill at ease." Hagar had been--and still was--a very striking woman. Her skin was brown and weathered from the years, but still taut over her sharp features. She wore her iron-gray hair long in a braid.  
  
"You're very considerate to do so," Jonathan said slowly, still reeling.   
  
"Come--what troubles you?" she invited.  
  
He gave her a hard, long look. "Things of the past," he said after a moment. "And things of the present as well."  
  
Hagar looked at him thoughtfully. "My time--and Uriel's--is done. Whatever his reasons, Jovah has chosen Lucifer to rule next. He went to see the Oracle Bathsheba in Gaza today, to seek his angelica's name. He will be Archangel before the month is out."  
  
"I mislike it," Jonathan said. "He's an unknown--no one can guess what we'll have from him, what he'll do when he's in power. He's very secretive, that one. He's to become Archangel tomorrow, and we don't even know who his angelica will be--I don't think I would trust him to uphold the laws set forth in the Librera."  
  
"There's little we can do, you know," Hagar said gently. "You keep your host at Monteverde, as Uriel and I keep ours at Bethel, and Lucifer won't be able to get out of control, whatever he's planning."  
  
The silver-haired angel sighed, and sat back down on the bed, dove-colored wings sweeping behind him. "Hagar: when you look at your husband, or me, or any angel I suppose--what do you see?"  
  
She looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You knew me and Uriel before we had wings, before we were angels--what do you think of us now?"  
  
"I thought of you as fine young men then, and I think of you as fine men now."  
  
"Even with these?" He fingered a wingtip gently.  
  
She sighed, realizing what exactly was bothering him, and came to sit beside him. "The priests and doctors didn't change you, Jonathan--only your body."  
  
"Still, that's something, isn't it. I'm surprised no one has jumped up and called us all abominations yet. And we are--look at us; look at what we've done."  
  
"Here you and I disagree, friend." Hagar looked away.  
  
Jonathan self-consciously stroked a feather. "I can't help but think they made a terrible mistake when they made us." He shook his head. "The world's suffering for it, too. Just look at the travesty they've made of the bond between parent and child! If a child isn't born with wings, they just throw it out..."  
  
Hagar rose from the bed, and smoothed out her robe. "You've been a good father to your three, Jonathan. I don't approve of the treatment of mortal children at the holds, and I've tried to curb it at Bethel--but surely you can understand why they do it? There are so few angels in the world; if there aren't enough, this entire world will fail. No one could intercede to prevent floods, droughts, plague..."  
  
"It's a bad system, Hagar. Putting angels between the people and their god--it isn't right! They gave us wings, but they didn't give all of us good hearts."  
  
The angelica straightened up slowly. "I've defended Uriel and Jovah all my life, Jonathan--this is the way the world will be. I'm sorry we can't come to an agreement." She turned and stalked from the room as silently as she had come. 


	5. Chapter 4

"My father--where is my father?" Deborah knew that the her increasingly alarmed cries would make people look her way; she didn't care. Lucifer cared, though, from the look on his face. "Be quiet, you silly girl," he growled, taking her roughly by her wrist and pulling her into his tent. "I want to talk to you alone--in private." His handsome, ruddy face was dark with fury; Deborah wrenched her hand from his grasp; she knew from Jonathan how unpredictable he was, and positioned herself to flee if necessary. Lucifer stood with his winged back to her for a moment, then turned around, once again composed, cool and utterly sure of himself. "Is that any way to speak to your husband-to-be?" he asked with chilling amusement.  
  
"What do you mean?" Deborah snapped, rubbing her wrist where his fingers had left small bruises. This was no time, she knew, to goad him with the false bravery of insults. He took her hand again, this time more gently, but with no less malice. "Look at your arm, my girl," he said, over-sweetly. He slowly rolled up her sleeve, like a lover, to reveal the Kiss planted there. The amber jewel seemed to stir faintly; Deborah could see faint, uneasy light coming from its milky depths; one Lucifer's bare arm, she could see his Kiss shining more forcefully, like an ember in the hearth; her stomach roiled. The angel traced the outline of it with his finger. "That light marks you as mine--my angelica--do you see?" Deborah felt her mouth working, but could not form words to deny what he had said. Lucifer smiled at her with cruel sweetness. "I can see that my words have shocked you--perhaps you had better go and lie down." He gave her a careless, affectionate push toward the tent flap. "You should know, however," he said, "that I mean to leave for Windy Point in two days' time--be ready to go when I come for you."  
  
Deborah turned to flee, sick to her soul, but stopped as someone cast a winged shadow across the floor. She turned to see another angel enter, body tense and face furrowed with disapproval.  
  
"Lucifer--what in Jovah's name are you about?" the second angel asked, genuinely shocked.   
  
"I've just given my angelica-to-be the good news," the red-haired angel said, furling his wings about his shoulders. "I went to Bathsheba in Gaza earlier, and got her name from Jovah himself," he added pointedly.  
  
Some of the alarm went out of the other angel's small body, but he still seemed angry. "I knew you flouted the customs set forth by Uriel, but I didn't think you would disregard even the most basic civility...!" His mouth taut with fury, the second angel pulled one of Lucifer's chair out from a table and offered it to Deborah; she sank into it, shaking and numbed.  
  
"Oh, come off it, Absalom!" Lucifer snapped, beginning to respond in kind. "You know as well as I that she has no choice in the matter...no angelica does, courtesy of our great god Jovah!" His voice was tinged with sarcasm. He took a step back, and eyed both Deborah and his friend. "I imagine you know what I mean--both of you." Deborah shrank into her seat as Lucifer's fiery form loomed over her. "And your father, my dear, should know better than anyone."  
  
The mention of her father hit Deborah like a faceful of cold water. "What about my father?" she growled, raising her face to meet his mocking gaze. Lucifer mused for a moment. "He's never told you has he? He's loyal to them, even now, even after they worked their art upon him."  
  
"Speak plainly," she demanded; a fierce tugging in her heart hinting at a truth she had guessed but never been able to ask Jonathan about.  
  
"Your father," drawled Lucifer, "is honored for being one of the oldest angels in the world, one of the First Angels, created when Jovah first brought us here. You've seen children born with wings--your sister and brother among them. But I can tell you that the angel Jonathan was born a mortal boy." He waited for Deborah's angry denial.   
  
She shivered again. In moments of brooding, her father had only dropped hints at the dark origins of Samaria's angels--a truth that threatened to upset the entire order of the world. "Speak plainly," she repeated.  
  
He graced her with a thoughtful look. "He was the child of meddling doctors and priests and oracles--people I shall take care of when I am Archangel."  
  
She felt her jaw tightening with anger. "If he is the misborn child of meddlers, then so are you."  
  
Lucifer tipped his head back slightly. "Indeed I am. And I shall see to it that the whole world knows it--that they learn their true nature of their god, Jovah; that they learn that they are kept in their place by abominations like your father and myself."  
  
Deborah clamped her hands around the seat of the chair; Absalom was still behind her—why did he say nothing? Perhaps he has heard all of this before, she thought. It does not shock him. "If you do, you will no longer be Archangel," she said, a challenge.  
  
He quirked a graceful eyebrow. "No? You don't think the people of Samaria will embrace the one who gives them the truth, misborn angel though he may be?"  
  
"They'll tear you to bits in their frenzy." Deborah and Lucifer looked, astonished, at the glowering countenance of Absalom. The brown-haired angel nodded solemnly. "You'll work your own destruction, Lucifer—and you're welcome to it. Henceforth I shall no longer call you 'friend.'" Deborah could see the Archangel-elect's brow furling; there was one thing, evidently, that he still valued. But Absalom had turned his back away, attending now to Jonathan's daughter. He offered Deborah his hand, silently, and led her out of the tent.  
  
"You look like you're in as much shock as I am," he said at length, when they were far from the Windy Point pavilion. A crooked and uneasy smile crossed his lips. "I think we could both do with a drop of water?" 


	6. Chapter 5

Jonathan awoke with a yelp, clamping his hand over his forearm where sudden fire had blossomed. Had someone attacked him, here in the sanctuary of Mount Sudan? His fingers found nothing but the Kiss embedded in his arm, which glowed eerily with a strange urgency and was, for once, warm to the touch. He sat up on the bed, dove-colored wings sweeping behind him, and puzzled over the sensation. Abigail was long dead--it could not be her lighting the Kiss. One of their children, perhaps? He had never seen it light up in the presence of either Miriam or Jude, but for Deborah...he remembered that it had lit up once, when he had been conferring with Uriel and Hagar at the Eyrie in Bethel. He had agreed to take Deborah with him, to show her something of Samaria outside of her home at Monteverde, and had allowed her to go off to play with some of the angel-children at the Archangel's hold. It had lit up like this while he was speaking with Uriel about the trespasses of two brothers in his province, by the name of Edor, and had stopped Jonathan mid-sentence. He had rushed out looking for Deborah, not sure what compelled him to search for her in particular; two angel-children were pulling her hair and kicking her legs and calling her a "wingless by-blow." They fled at the sight of Jonathan, leaving him to comfort his unfortunate daughter.  
  
Jonathan leapt involuntarily from the bed; that must be it--Deborah was frightened, in danger. He hastily pulled on his flying clothes, then ran to the entrance to the mountain. The blush of dawn was just beginning to tint the sky; his sudden departure from Mount Sudan would ordinarily be thought of as unpardonably rude, but somehow he felt that Levi might understand. He took a running jump and flung himself aloft, pumping his wings to gain altitude. Being a small man, and light-boned as all angels were, it did not take him long to break through the thin layer of clouds. He surged forward on a current of air coming off the mountains, and flew to the south-and-east, not stopping until he reached the Plain of Sharon.  
  
*****  
  
Absalom silently watched the girl between sips from his waterglass. She had not said a word since they had left Lucifer's tent, and only sat there, gazing off at nothing. Be fair to her, he cautioned himself. She's just had the shock of her life. As I have, he added with a sigh. Lucifer's anarchical ideas had always bothered him, Absalom had never thought his former friend would put them into practice. He had thought he knew Lucifer better than that--apparently, he had been mistaken about the angel's true nature. He looked again at Deborah; poor girl, he thought. She has no place in this mess--and if she's to be Lucifer's angelica...Absalom shuddered at the thought. The red-haired angel had bedded often and frequently with the women who hung around Windy Point, "angel-seekers" they were called, never seeming to mind that his offspring born of them only helped to perpetuate the angelic tyranny he himself condemned. One-sided, Absalom thought. One-sided: that's what Lucifer is. He always goes on about how the priests and oracles and angels are oppressing the people of Samaria, but never acknowledges that his own actions abet them. He accepted his post as leader at Windy Point willingly enough—he tried to justify it by saying that if he were in a position of power he could reveal the truth to the people of Samaria without risk of punishment, but he liked the power and position well enough. To think that I called that I called him 'friend' once...  
  
He heard alarmed murmurings outside, and turned to see what was the matter; he nearly fell out of his chair when the wild-eyed angel Jonathan tore open the flap of the tent, wings trembling with exhaustion and voice frantic. "Deborah? Is she there? Deborah!" The girl rushed forward to meet her father, and the two embraced each other tightly, as if to assure themselves that the other really was there and alive. "My Kiss...I thought you were in danger," Jonathan said between gasps of breath, holding her at arms length to examine her face. She turned her head away. "Father," she said softly. "I am to be Lucifer's angelica."  
  
Jonathan was silent for a moment, shoulders and wings still lifting with each labored breath. "He told you this himself? He--" The Monteverde leader caught sight of the darkening bruises on her wrists, and his face grew grim. "There is no denying it if it is so--but by Jovah, he shall come and ask for you respectfully before you ever stand at his side! I will not suffer you to be so ill-used!" Deborah's stiff frame seemed to collapse, and her father pulled her gently against him. "Never, never, my daughter." The Monteverde angel turned his gaze upon Absalom. "But what are you doing with this man?" he asked. "If I am not mistaken, he is often in Lucifer's company and confidences."  
  
"I was, sir," Absalom said quietly, rising from his seat, "but I have renounced him. He went to far in his treatment of your daughter." Jonathan nodded slowly. Absalom knew that the Monteverde leader still did not entirely trust him, but his condemnation of Lucifer put him a little more at ease. "Come, daughter," said Jonathan, leading her from the tent. "It is time we quit this place."  
  
  
  
*****  
  
Lucifer tapped his foot on the cool stone floor, the only outward sign of the fury and impatience that was seething inside of him. "Surely you can see," he said smoothly, "the pointlessness of this argument. She is to be my angelica--Jovah himself has said so; and I can assure you she shall not want for anything at Windy Point. The attendants there are most considerate."  
  
"It is not them I mistrust," snarled Jonathan. "It is you. Unless you allow her to remain here, she shall never stand beside you at the Gloria--even if that means calling down Jovah's wrath."  
  
Damn this angel, Lucifer raged to himself. He must have the girl--it was a matter of pride, of influence, of control. How dared this old, withered, misborn thing to deny him? "You wouldn't," Lucifer returned coldly, sadistically. "You haven't upheld the Librera and Jovah's law your entire life just to cast it aside for the sake of your wingless daughter." He saw a spark of something flicker in Jonathan's dark eyes, and pounced upon it. "Hah! You don't love the priests and oracles and angels any better than I do! We are of a like mind in that respect, Jonathan--you were there when it began to go wrong! You were one of the first victims of their meddling; you've let yourself be their tool for your entire life; why are you digging your heels in about your daughter, hmm? One wingless girl?" He paused, gauging Jonathan's reaction; although the Monteverde leader was struggling to hide it, Lucifer knew he had touched on one of the questions which gnawed at the silver-haired angel the most; and he could see that he had awakened unwelcome memories from Jonathan's youth.  
  
"I can see what you are thinking--you look at yourself, at all the angels, at the way mortal children are treated, and wonder if this isn't all a debasement of our lives? They worked their art upon you, Jonathan, twisted your life so they could have their way--why do you now defend them? Together, you and I could stop them in their tracks, unmask them before the entire world!"  
  
The Monteverde angel's eyes grew suddenly cold. "Not at my daughter's expense--never." With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. Lucifer watched the gray wings disappear into the darkness. You choose your way, he thought, and I'll chose mine. But I shall have my way, with or without your worthless daughter. He tugged at his lower lip thoughtfully. So, Deborah would never sing at his side—which meant he would have to unmask Jovah before the next Gloria, when the so-called god would unleash his wrath with impunity. But how to grasp Samaria's attention before then, only a year away?  
  
Lucifer heard someone cough behind him. A plain mortal man, one of the servants at Monteverde, hovered politely near the door. "If your business is concluded," he said in clipped tones, "I shall escort you out."  
  
"I'll find my own way out, thank you," the red-haired angel said by way of dismissal. He saw disapproval register in the man's eyes, but he acquiesced and left. Unable to hold still any longer, Lucifer began walking down one of the corridors, which led to the kitchens. He was about to exit to the place where the angels came and went, when he heard someone yell in one of the rooms.  
  
"Reu! For Jovah's sake...give me that." Lucifer pressed himself to the wall, and peered around the doorframe. One of the cooks had snatched a kettle out of the hearth and was emptying it into a slop sink, all the while brandishing a wooden spoon over the head of a bewildered-looking young man, with a doughy, misshapen face and small, beady eyes. "Can't you do anything right? I'll be damned if I ever let you tend the fire again..."  
  
Reu...the name struck a note in Lucifer's mind. As the cook stomped off through another door, he ran his eyes over the boy--he was huge for his years, but sat on the floor, blubbering like a child and wiping his nose; the Windy Point angel could see that his limbs to were malformed, twisted. He suddenly remembered where he had heard the name before--this was Reu, born to the angels Adah and Eliab. He was another of the mistakes the doctors and priests had made; right after his birth, the Librera had been amended to bar relations between two angels, to prevent more children like him from being born. He was conclusive proof of what Lucifer had always suspected--that angels were closely bred, like prize horses or dogs, creations of men who claimed to uphold Jovah's law. Only interbreeding with mortals could thin angelic blood enough to prevent misfortunes like Reu. Lucifer straightened up, and slipped through the door to put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder, the seed of an idea planted in his mind. 


	7. Chapter 6

Note: Thanks to Jovieve for looking up the names of the Edor brothers--a friend of mine had pinched my copy of "Jovah's Angel," and Jo was gracious enough to look them up for me. Thanks so much!  
  
Absalom held his two ruby-studded bands in one hand, examining them in the half-light, hearing them chime faintly as they tapped each other. He'd had the jewels set in plain gold--he had no family pattern to lay claim to, by rights. The bracelets flashed as he turned them over in his palm. No family, no friends, no certain future: he was an outcast in every way possible, now that he'd denounced Lucifer; he couldn't go back to Windy Point now, not after what had happened. He had sent a petition to the angel Jonathan, asking for permission to live at Monteverde, but given the older angel's current troubles, it would be sometime before the request would be considered. Which left only one course of action, one which Absalom had, for many years, dreaded facing.  
  
"So, you've left Lucifer at last."  
  
Absalom turned, and looked into two familiar faces he wasn't sure he'd ever wanted to see again--his two half-brothers, Victor and Amos Edor. They were as dark as Absalom was--all three of them shared their father's brown color.   
  
Victor smiled unpleasantly after his remark, but Amos, the pleasanter of the two, frowned and firmly pushed his brother aside. "We got your message," he said to Absalom, not unkindly. "It wasn't easy for us to get here to the Plain of Sharon, even with the Gloria crowds; we're none too popular, even with Monteverde's promise of safe passage--but you! You sound like you're in dire straits indeed."  
  
"I don't know--I don't know what Lucifer will do now; even if he doesn't decide to come after me, I'm out of a home; it will be months before Jonathan even looks at my request."  
  
Amos nodded--his half-brother had intimated this much in his letter. "You're always welcome among us--" He raised a hand to silence Victor's indignant exclamation. "It's been years since I've seen you, brother, but you are our brother still. You were Absalom Edor before you were ever the angel Absalom." The renegade's eyes searched the angel's. "We're not asking for your loyalty, or for your favor when you return to the angel hold. We're not asking anything of you. I say, you are always welcome among us, whether good or ill betide you."  
  
The angel gripped his brother's hands fervently. "Thank you, Amos--I can't tell you what this means to me." His smile was crooked. "I honestly expected you to rebuff me--Jovah bless you for your kindness."  
  
The slender man smiled in response, somewhat discomfited by this unusual display of emotion, but sympathetic nonetheless. "These are troubled times, brother--we and our supporters welcome with open arms anyone fleeing the oppression of this system the angels and oracles and priests have established."  
  
"Come, we must be going," Victor growled from behind Amos. "Both Uriel and Lucifer are still encamped here--I cannot promise that we will be safe if we stay." The other Edor brother nodded, and beckoned for Absalom to follow. The angel caped his wings about his shoulders in the encroaching darkness, and thrust his bracelets into his pocket. As he made haste from the pavilions with his two half-brothers, the wind on his bare wrists was more wonderful then any sensation he had ever felt.  
  
*****  
  
Never before, in Jonathan's life, had a stiff drink ever seemed so enticing--he did not much care for wine or ale in general, but after today he would have accepted even the rudest beer with gratitude. The search for Reu had extended far into the night, without success; he hadn't mentioned it to anyone, but he strongly suspected that the disappearance was connected to Lucifer's visit. The boy Reu had a simple mind, but he was not in the habit of wandering away; in his condition, he was a highly suggestible person, vulnerable to an extreme to whatever idea Lucifer might choose to plant in his mind. That thought set every one of Jonathan's nerves to prickling--he was mortally afraid of the fact that he had no idea whatsoever what Lucifer's plans might be. He was usually good at deducing people scheme's and motives, but the abduction of Reu had left him entirely at a loss.  
  
The angel's disturbing ruminations were interrupted by a soft step at the doorway of his study--ah, Deborah. Another matter which weighed heavily on his mind. He extended his arms to her, and she stumbled forward, haltingly, then fell to her knees, shoulders shuddering with inaudible sobs. I will kill Lucifer before I ever let him use my daughter so ill again, he thought savagely.  
  
"What did he do?" he asked quietly, implacably. "Deborah, I swear I shall have his blood on my hands before he ever touches you again."  
  
"Not what you think," she said after a moment, when her frantic weeping had subsided. "He didn't need to resort to that sort of thing--he is too cunning for that."  
  
Jonathan touched a finger to her chin, and lifted up her flushed, salt-streaked face. "What did he say to you, then?"  
  
She shook her head. "Very little that I would believe--only that I would be his angelica, and--" She stopped short.  
  
"And...?"  
  
Deborah looked pained. "He had been driven to madness by lies, father--but there is one thing I must ask you."  
  
His eyes searched her own; he knew what she meant. "Ask it," he said in a low voice.  
  
"Were you born a mortal boy?"  
  
He had known what she would ask, but hearing the words themselves, hearing them articulated in sound and voice made him close his eyes and draw away. Not my daughter, he thought. I cannot lie to her, not as she is. "Yes," he said. "I was a mortal man who became an angel through artifice and cunning."  
  
"Wingless?"  
  
"Wingless, dearheart--like you."  
  
Unexpectedly, she rose up, and embraced him. "Tell me: I must know--and I imagine that you must want to unburden yourself of this secret."  
  
"Hardly a secret," he said with a sigh, and gestured for her to sit with him by the fire. "It was never concealed, really--only forgotten." He gave a small, ironic chuckle. "I only half-remember it, myself. I was as young as you--no, younger." He preened out a loose feather with his hand, then ran it between his thumb and forefinger; he had no wish to remember the gruesome details of the ordeal, and she did not deserve to have to listen to them. "I was born a mortal, but bred so that I could sire angel children," he said succinctly. "They grafted the wings to my back, so that I might do them service as they saw fit--that is the long and the short of it." He examined the dove-gray feather by candlelight. "I don't know much more than that. I cannot tell you anything about my father and mother, your grandparents. I doubt that any of the first angels could, even Uriel himself. And certainly not Lucifer." 


End file.
